Champions Online Closed Beta Impressions

Cryptic Studios bucked the Superhero movie game curse somewhat in 2004 by releasing a MMORPG based around the lives of Superheros rather than one or two in particular. Despite a few teething problems revolving around players creating in game avatars that infringed on Marvel and DC Comic's characters, the game was a success. However Cryptic Studios have now handed the reigns over to NC Soft and have licensed the Champions rule set for an entirely new MMORPG.

The Champions rule set differs from that adopted in City of Heroes/Villains (COH) by introducing not only the standard Superhero powers such as freezing, throwing fireballs and zipping around like a demented Yoda, but also more traditional Dungeons and Dragons type powers like magic, swords and mythically inspired creatures. But character creation is still a fairly traditional process, a variety of knobs, sliders and dials can be fiddled with to change your alter ego but most of the individuality players can express comes from the outfits of which there are a mind boggling number of permutations.

Happily if your imagination doesn't stretch to envisaging which tighty-whiteys should be donned on top of your spandex, there is a random costume button which throws up some inventive and amusing fittings. Next in the process is selecting an archetype, the list is extensive: archery, munitions, martial arts, there's something for everyone. In contrast to many other MMORPGs choosing a class does not lock you to using just the powers available to it, as a certain degree of interoperability is allowed and encouraged.

The sense of uniqueness of a given hero is also strengthened by the way they walk, if you choose fish-like legs then in water your character will flip his legs like a tail, this can also lead to some hilarious hybrids where your character will bound along on all fours until you run backwards when they gain the ability to walk upright. We're not certain Darwin would agree with it but it's a fairly comical sight.

Choosing skills is at first limited to a power attack and a basic attack (power attacks require more endurance so you'll spend most of your time building it using your weaker move). Attacks can also be modified slightly by choosing the colour of your projectiles.

The other major departure from COH is that Champions Online will be available on Xbox 360 (releasing around a month later than on PC) and this means that getting the controls right for a console has been a major concern. The advantage for PC is that if you own an Xbox 360 pad then it's available as a control scheme, thus giving you a sneak peek at how the game will feel on the Xbox 360. Other control options are available, which emulate FPS set-ups and more standard MMORPG layouts, this is a strong move as it will be a challenge to break what has traditionally been seen as a  'hardcore' genre to the Xbox 360.

Our time with the game covered the first three areas, a tutorial in Millennium City, a zombie outbreak in a Canadian desert and a rumble in the jungle Each zone has a central figure who gives out quests and rewards, additional contacts open up to offer non essential goals but each mission will only take around ten minutes. After a few successes you'll face off against the villains of the region, it's recommended to do them as a team but with careful hiding to regain health (which replenishes on its own outside of combat) it's possible to solo them.

Combat controls well enough, though the tutorial only covers the basics and once you start to craft or experiment with creating powers, you're pretty much left on your own, so hopefully the community will step in to help out newcomers. At the moment the majority of players are veterans of COH and I was only able to find one player to team-up with to tackle the end of sections bosses. But first I entered sidekick mode to help him finish a few quests, this has promise as it means that if you stop playing for a while, you're not left behind by your friends' higher levels. Unfortunately it's currently underdeveloped as it just lowers high level players to the party's lowest common denominator and doesn't even show the weaker player's quest on the stronger one's screen. Additionally if you stray too far from your sidekick then the bond breaks which can be frustrating as some travel powers (non combat oriented) are far slower than others so by the time you arrive the battle may well be over.

Other concessions to the console development have also crept in, death is not the crippling loss that it is in fellow MMORPGs World of Warcraft or Eve Online, the penalties are much less severe. Players lose their star level (sort of like a kill streak reward as each one you gain, up to five, increases the damage you deal) and item conditions degrade (though they can be repaired). Similarly in addition to the automatically recovering health, enemies drop orbs which can refill your health and endurance on the fly. Finally only the player that kills the enemy can take their dropped items, which stops squabbling, kill stealing and the occasional real world murder.

As something of a virgin to the MMORPG scene these mostly seem good touches but there's no doubt that stalwart COH players will have some complaints about this seemingly dumbing down process. Cryptic Studios is in the unenviable position of breaking new ground by developing a western MMORPG for a console, particularly for the Xbox 360 which hasn't sold well in MMORPG stronghold countries Korea and China. It's certainly not as bad as it would have been for a last gen console, as patches are now an option, but will the average gamer have the patience for hours of patching and game changing additions? It's a titanic task but hopefully Champions Online won't have the same ending as the Titanic.